Kids and Grown-Ups These Days

The latest Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt campaign against the Internets has trained its guns on MySpace, which is now suddenly the home to countless sexual predators and the next Columbine shooters [more here]. In addition, we're all supposed to be shocked -- shocked! -- that fourteen year-olds use profanity. Every Good Parent is now supposed to get a MySpace account and make sure their daughters (and yes, the press coverage is heavily skewed towards protecting daughters and not children in general) aren't getting unwanted attention from older men or showing off cleavage. First of all, once again the press tars the millions of MySpace users (or in previous incarnations, Doom and Quake players) with the unsavory work of a few bad apples. Second, look, parenting is important, but sometimes good parenting means that children and parents need to build a certain level of trust, that mom and dad won't snoop into their teenagers' private lives, but that kids need to understand the consequences of what they write, and be willing to talk to parents when things seem to have crossed the line.

Curiously, this story arrived at about the same time that ABC News ran a faux-third-wave feminist piece entitled "Anything but Desparate Housewives", which features career-driven super-moms who have found excitement in activities like NFL cheerleading, pole dancing, and posing for Playboy. I'm sure there's no connection between the first story and the second. None whatsoever.

This means we can expect MySpace to enter the talking points of nanny state politicians with lightning speed. I'll take 5-3 odds that Hillary is the first politician to bring it up. 4-1 for Joe Lieberman, 10-1 for Tom Coburn or Sam Brownback, and 20-1 for the field.